Now that Paula Abdul has admitted her eating disorder after a spate of revelations and interventions for other celebrities for their own eating disorders (Mary Kate Olsen, Lindsey Lohan), I decided to come clean with my own struggle with an eating disorder. And I enjoin others to do so as well. (I’m talking to you, Nicole Ritchie. And you, too, Lara Flynn Boyle.) It’s only after we admit we have a problem that we can begin to solve it.
It has been a long ordeal for me. Not only the eating disorder itself, but the act of hiding it from my friends and loved ones has made it doubly difficult. I can no longer do so. I can not lie to those who love me. And so I have taken this painful step that I hope would lead me to recovery. I’m counting on you, my friends, to help me in this, my most trying time.
I have a rare eating disorder called dyslexovora. I eat dessert first before the main course.
There, I said it. I feel relieved. Like a giant cactus has been pulled from my ass. I hope that I can inspire other celebrities to come forward. Together, we can fight this deadly scourge that’s afflicting both Hollywood and the world of haute couture.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
She blinded me with Science, part 2
That a popular theory could be so wrong came to the fore once again when scientists in Germany discovered a significant amount of methane, a greenhouse gas, comes from trees. Trees! The Amazon forest produces tons of the stuff. What to do, what to do? The Kyoto protocols that seek to mobilize governments into fighting global warming has a ‘tree credit’ clause which allows countries a bit more leeway in their greenhouse gas emissions if they offset it with a reforestation program. Trees have been known to soak up carbon dioxide, another greenhouse gas, and so cancels out the greenhouse gas emissions of industry. Or so they thought. The anti-global warming scientists probably are snickering at this development. No the ‘antis’ don’t deny global warming. They just deny that human activities have anything to do with climate change. They believe it is a natural cyclical process that has been going on even before we showed up and they decry the waste of money that’s being poured into measures to fight it. That greenhouse gases come from trees seem to bolster the theory that the earth will go through it’s warming-cooling cycles even without our help. But does this new finding slow down the ‘It’s-all-our-fault’ climate scientists? Not one bit. There is an entire industry that has been built on it already. Reputations, egos, and the research grant dollars are at stake. According to Nobel Prize winning chemist Kary Mullis, “Global warmers predict that global warming is coming, and our emissions are to blame. They do that to keep us worried about our role in the whole thing. If we aren't worried and guilty, we might not pay their salaries. It's that simple.”
Falsifiability is one of the most popular criteria for determining if a theory is scientific. This is because absolute verifiability is impossible since there is an infinite number of possible hypotheses that can explain a particular phenomenon. A scientific theory can never be proven right. It can only be proven wrong. Scientists therefore are limited to investigating theories that they can falsify. Any scientist that seeks to espouse conclusions that science couldn’t bear out runs the risk of looking like a fool, or worse, a fanatic. But that’s just what Richard Dawkins did. In a 2-part TV show in the British Channel 4, Professor Dawkins stated that religion is akin to child abuse, and that the Judeo-Christian God “has got to be the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous, and proud of it, petty, vindictive, unjust, unforgiving, racist.” Dawkins’s field is biology, specifically ethology or the study of animal behavior. One wonders what sort of scientific experiments the good professor ran to reach such a conclusion. Of course, Professor Dawkins, when he stated those things, wasn't making a scientific conclusion, but a philosophical or theological one, well outside his field of expertise, philosophy and theology being inherently unfalsifiable scientifically. His statements therefore can just as easily be dismissed as utter nonsense the way we can dismiss Pat Robertson’s opinion that Ariel Sharon’s stroke was a punishment from God. (Although as a theologian, Dr. Robertson didn't stray far away from his field of expertise, the statement was nevertheless stupid. I mean have you seen Ariel Sharon? He’s old, overweight, and is the Prime Minister of one of the most troubled countries in the world. That spells stroke in any language.)
I don't know what it is with scientists and their egos. If you really look at it, scientists should be the most humble people on the planet. That’s because science recognizes that at any time, as new data come in, they could be wrong. It also recognizes that the things open to scientific investigation are very limited indeed. And yet, the image of the scientist in my mind is one of in-your-face chutzpah, thanks to people like Richard Dawkins.
Falsifiability is one of the most popular criteria for determining if a theory is scientific. This is because absolute verifiability is impossible since there is an infinite number of possible hypotheses that can explain a particular phenomenon. A scientific theory can never be proven right. It can only be proven wrong. Scientists therefore are limited to investigating theories that they can falsify. Any scientist that seeks to espouse conclusions that science couldn’t bear out runs the risk of looking like a fool, or worse, a fanatic. But that’s just what Richard Dawkins did. In a 2-part TV show in the British Channel 4, Professor Dawkins stated that religion is akin to child abuse, and that the Judeo-Christian God “has got to be the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous, and proud of it, petty, vindictive, unjust, unforgiving, racist.” Dawkins’s field is biology, specifically ethology or the study of animal behavior. One wonders what sort of scientific experiments the good professor ran to reach such a conclusion. Of course, Professor Dawkins, when he stated those things, wasn't making a scientific conclusion, but a philosophical or theological one, well outside his field of expertise, philosophy and theology being inherently unfalsifiable scientifically. His statements therefore can just as easily be dismissed as utter nonsense the way we can dismiss Pat Robertson’s opinion that Ariel Sharon’s stroke was a punishment from God. (Although as a theologian, Dr. Robertson didn't stray far away from his field of expertise, the statement was nevertheless stupid. I mean have you seen Ariel Sharon? He’s old, overweight, and is the Prime Minister of one of the most troubled countries in the world. That spells stroke in any language.)
I don't know what it is with scientists and their egos. If you really look at it, scientists should be the most humble people on the planet. That’s because science recognizes that at any time, as new data come in, they could be wrong. It also recognizes that the things open to scientific investigation are very limited indeed. And yet, the image of the scientist in my mind is one of in-your-face chutzpah, thanks to people like Richard Dawkins.
Tune in, turn on, get a facial
Albert Hoffman, the father of LSD, turned 100 yesterday. He reflects on his discovery here.
What LSD does to the human brain is to remove its built-in reducing valve function such that we experience our environment in all its raw, kinesthetic form, unprocessed and not pre-judged by our conscious self. Everything opens up; a truly mystical experience. In creative people (artists, poets, Hannibal Lecter), this non-judgemental way of getting data from the environment occurs naturally. In most of us, the reducing valve function works overtime. Our brain takes in information from the environment, filters them and determines which information are useful and relevant to our own daily lives, and discards the rest. The lack of the ability to filter this information is also a sign of mental illness.
The difference between the creative type and the crazy is this: the creative type knows what to do with the information. He uses them and channels them towards creative pursuits. The crazy is simply overwhelmed. Intelligence plays a good part in knowing what to do with the information. A study by Harvard University found that what differentiates a creative from a crazy is the former’s high IQ. That’s the only thing that’s keeping the creative from going bonkers, and sometimes he doesn’t succeed. Creative people can be nuts. Vincent Van Gogh cutting off his ear comes to mind. The stresses of daily life can overwhelm their already wide open brains such that it slips over into the twilight zone.
Knowing what LSD does, and probably knowing how many stupid people are out there, Dr. Hoffman says LSD should be a controlled substance. He called Timothy Leary’s popularization of LSD a crime. On the other hand, he is also frustrated by the chemical’s demonization all over the world, noting its success in the field of psychiatry.
Perhaps a way out of this could be a licensed “LSD parlor” where anyone who wants to alter their consciousness could go. It will be staffed by chemists and psychologists, and to qualify for the treatment, you have to pass an IQ test. A high-priced spa could offer it as one of their services along with the regular fare of Dead Sea salt scrubs and pure oxygen inhalation. Imagine the instant “Hip” factor it’ll give you in social circles. “You look great. Where’ve you been?” “Spent the weekend at my spa. You really should try their aromatherapy, kelp scrub, and LSD treatment.” You’ll not only be seen as rich, with-it, and upwardly mobile, people would know you also have a high IQ without having to tastelessly brag about it.
That’s hot.
What LSD does to the human brain is to remove its built-in reducing valve function such that we experience our environment in all its raw, kinesthetic form, unprocessed and not pre-judged by our conscious self. Everything opens up; a truly mystical experience. In creative people (artists, poets, Hannibal Lecter), this non-judgemental way of getting data from the environment occurs naturally. In most of us, the reducing valve function works overtime. Our brain takes in information from the environment, filters them and determines which information are useful and relevant to our own daily lives, and discards the rest. The lack of the ability to filter this information is also a sign of mental illness.
The difference between the creative type and the crazy is this: the creative type knows what to do with the information. He uses them and channels them towards creative pursuits. The crazy is simply overwhelmed. Intelligence plays a good part in knowing what to do with the information. A study by Harvard University found that what differentiates a creative from a crazy is the former’s high IQ. That’s the only thing that’s keeping the creative from going bonkers, and sometimes he doesn’t succeed. Creative people can be nuts. Vincent Van Gogh cutting off his ear comes to mind. The stresses of daily life can overwhelm their already wide open brains such that it slips over into the twilight zone.
Knowing what LSD does, and probably knowing how many stupid people are out there, Dr. Hoffman says LSD should be a controlled substance. He called Timothy Leary’s popularization of LSD a crime. On the other hand, he is also frustrated by the chemical’s demonization all over the world, noting its success in the field of psychiatry.
Perhaps a way out of this could be a licensed “LSD parlor” where anyone who wants to alter their consciousness could go. It will be staffed by chemists and psychologists, and to qualify for the treatment, you have to pass an IQ test. A high-priced spa could offer it as one of their services along with the regular fare of Dead Sea salt scrubs and pure oxygen inhalation. Imagine the instant “Hip” factor it’ll give you in social circles. “You look great. Where’ve you been?” “Spent the weekend at my spa. You really should try their aromatherapy, kelp scrub, and LSD treatment.” You’ll not only be seen as rich, with-it, and upwardly mobile, people would know you also have a high IQ without having to tastelessly brag about it.
That’s hot.
Monday, January 09, 2006
The coming Nematopia
Holy crap, we’re done for! NASA reports that nematode worms that were on the ill-fated Columbia space shuttle survived the crash. The researchers who recovered the nematodes state that the worms’ survival could offer us clues as to how simple life forms may have survived traumatic interplanetary journeys, bolstering the theory that ‘seed genes’ may have come from other parts of the universe aboard comets, landed in the earth’s primordial soup, and started the chain reaction that eventually resulted in creating we, the people. Right.
But these so-called researchers aren’t telling us everything. The nematodes were placed in coffee can sized containers and carted off to space to be experimented on. Does that tell you anything? You bet. They’re as mad as all heck. Imagine being taken from your swamp under false pretenses (or against your will), placed in a metal container with no windows, and eventually ending up in a lab 50 miles above the planet to be poked, prodded, pushed, sliced and diced to find out how we humans would fare in outer space. But in one experiment that showed an appalling lack of respect for the consequences, the worms were exposed to cosmic rays. That’s right. The same interstellar cosmic rays that the Fantastic 4 were exposed to. So are you still surprised that the nematodes survived the crash? They have superpowers! And they’re mad! NASA isn’t telling us everything to avoid a panic.
Right this very minute, those angry super-nematodes are multiplying. They already have a prodigious reproductive rate, but once again, the techno-folly of us humans is aiding this dangerous mutation inadvertently. Because of the communications explosion of recent years, there’s radiation everywhere. Especially microwave radiation from cell phone sites which have been shown to increase nematode fertility. I don't know what cell phone users are talking about these days, but it seems it turns the nematodes on and they burst in spontaneous bacchanalic reveling which always results in baby nematodes. Baby super-powered nematodes, who can create force fields at will, or burst into spontaneous combustion without harming themselves, or acquire an outer shell as tough as granite and the strength of 12 elephants, or acquire a super-intelligence of the malevolent kind.
NASA researchers have isolated the recovered canisters in vaults with walls made of 2 meters of steel in underground caves in the military base near Groom Lake in Nevada. There they are kept in suspended animation with liquid nitrogen. They have tried destroying them, but have not succeeded. The liquid nitrogen however, does slow them down. But that’s not the end of that. The Columbia debris is scattered over a very wide area and not all canisters with the mutant nematodes have been recovered. NASA fears that some of the canisters may not have survived the impact and that—Heaven help us— some of the nematodes have escaped, and are at this very minute, copulating with wild abandon, driven to heights of lust and debauchery by our text messages, Gud AM it.
But these so-called researchers aren’t telling us everything. The nematodes were placed in coffee can sized containers and carted off to space to be experimented on. Does that tell you anything? You bet. They’re as mad as all heck. Imagine being taken from your swamp under false pretenses (or against your will), placed in a metal container with no windows, and eventually ending up in a lab 50 miles above the planet to be poked, prodded, pushed, sliced and diced to find out how we humans would fare in outer space. But in one experiment that showed an appalling lack of respect for the consequences, the worms were exposed to cosmic rays. That’s right. The same interstellar cosmic rays that the Fantastic 4 were exposed to. So are you still surprised that the nematodes survived the crash? They have superpowers! And they’re mad! NASA isn’t telling us everything to avoid a panic.
Right this very minute, those angry super-nematodes are multiplying. They already have a prodigious reproductive rate, but once again, the techno-folly of us humans is aiding this dangerous mutation inadvertently. Because of the communications explosion of recent years, there’s radiation everywhere. Especially microwave radiation from cell phone sites which have been shown to increase nematode fertility. I don't know what cell phone users are talking about these days, but it seems it turns the nematodes on and they burst in spontaneous bacchanalic reveling which always results in baby nematodes. Baby super-powered nematodes, who can create force fields at will, or burst into spontaneous combustion without harming themselves, or acquire an outer shell as tough as granite and the strength of 12 elephants, or acquire a super-intelligence of the malevolent kind.
NASA researchers have isolated the recovered canisters in vaults with walls made of 2 meters of steel in underground caves in the military base near Groom Lake in Nevada. There they are kept in suspended animation with liquid nitrogen. They have tried destroying them, but have not succeeded. The liquid nitrogen however, does slow them down. But that’s not the end of that. The Columbia debris is scattered over a very wide area and not all canisters with the mutant nematodes have been recovered. NASA fears that some of the canisters may not have survived the impact and that—Heaven help us— some of the nematodes have escaped, and are at this very minute, copulating with wild abandon, driven to heights of lust and debauchery by our text messages, Gud AM it.
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Primal scream
"We're super excited. We've been looking for such a number for a long time." So says Central Missouri State University associate dean and chemistry professor Steven Boone in announcing that after years of searching, programming 700 computers, several thousand man-hours of work, mostly by undergrads who won’t even be credited in the paper, and I-don't-know-how-many-megawatt hours of electricity, they have found the largest known prime number. And it isn’t just any prime number, oh no. It’s a Mersenne Prime Number. A Mersenne Prime is not just your average daily divisible-by-one-and-itself prime number. A Mersenne Prime is a prime number that is one less than a prime power of two.
Now, is it just me, or is everyone else going, “Uhhhh… So?” I just can’t share professor Boone’s super excitement. So they found the largest ever prime number, what are they going to do with it? You can’t print t-shirts with it and sell that. The number they found is 9.1 million digits long. Enough digits in 10-point Times New Roman to circle the earth 17 times. The printing costs alone would be exorbitant, pricing the t-shirt out of the general market. The market for the t-shirt would consist solely of Paris Hilton and you know she won’t be wearing it for long.
I say, now that you’ve found this number, for the love of all that’s holy, STOP! You know you won’t find the largest prime number. It’s impossible. Leave it be. Unplug those 700 computers and donate them to some third world country. The time, energy, and talent used in this endeavor should now be put to better use. Alternative and renewable sources of energy. Vaccines for killer diseases. Free internet that would reach the remotest barangays with computers that won’t cost you an arm, a leg, and your virgin daughter, and runs on kitchen waste. Better TV programming for GMA and ABS-CBN. (I just threw the last one in for laughs. We all know that’s impossible. But you get the point.)
Now, is it just me, or is everyone else going, “Uhhhh… So?” I just can’t share professor Boone’s super excitement. So they found the largest ever prime number, what are they going to do with it? You can’t print t-shirts with it and sell that. The number they found is 9.1 million digits long. Enough digits in 10-point Times New Roman to circle the earth 17 times. The printing costs alone would be exorbitant, pricing the t-shirt out of the general market. The market for the t-shirt would consist solely of Paris Hilton and you know she won’t be wearing it for long.
I say, now that you’ve found this number, for the love of all that’s holy, STOP! You know you won’t find the largest prime number. It’s impossible. Leave it be. Unplug those 700 computers and donate them to some third world country. The time, energy, and talent used in this endeavor should now be put to better use. Alternative and renewable sources of energy. Vaccines for killer diseases. Free internet that would reach the remotest barangays with computers that won’t cost you an arm, a leg, and your virgin daughter, and runs on kitchen waste. Better TV programming for GMA and ABS-CBN. (I just threw the last one in for laughs. We all know that’s impossible. But you get the point.)
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Closer
We left Caloocan in 1995 and I haven’t been back since my dad died in ’98. We decided to hold the funeral in Caloocan because that’s where most of his pals were. Most of my pals, too. My daughter was 2 at the time. My aunt took her the coffin and told her, “Look. Lolo is sleeping.” My daughter said, “Sleeping? He’s dead!” Anyway, 1998 was the last time I saw the old gang, the blokes I used to run with. We had a time reminiscing, then we buried my dad and that was the last time I went back there.
Fast forward to 2005. December 31st. Family reunion. Probably the only time I get to see my cousins that isn’t a funeral for some dead relative. One of my aunts still was in touch with the people in the street we used to live in and she gave me the following update.
Morrie is in jail. Arrested for selling drugs. Morrie was sort of like the leader. He was a jolly fun guy to be with, played guitar and sang, and was a bit of a ladies’ man, especially with the nannies and household help in the neighborhood. He was always first into battle when some punks tried to test our mettle. Sometimes we didn't have to fight them because Morrie has already put them in their place. Once Morrie, Gary, and I were hanging out on the street just shooting the breeze, when this punk from the other street came out, drunk and ranting and yelling for “whoever it was who insulted my family.” There was a pretty boisterous party the night before, and maybe somebody did yell something like “To hell with the [blank] family.” In English. We were pretty drunk then. We might even know who it was, but you don’t do that. You don’t come to our street and yell for one of our pals, and threaten to bring out your M-16. And we sure as hades weren’t handing anybody over to you. Morrie went and confronted the guy to ask him what the hell his problem was. Nicely. The guy then lit on Morrie, and yelled in his face. “I’m going to bring out my guns and you’ll see.” Actually he was more poetic than that. He said, “Pag umiyak ang M-16 ko, magkakaalaman din tayo.” I’ll make my M-16 cry and we’ll all get to know the truth. On and on he went. I never left Morrie’s side. We were trying to calm the punk down. Or kick his ass if necessary. We were just waiting for his move. Meanwhile, Gary rounded up the other blokes, and around 10 of them came out, ready to rumble. They surrounded the guy. “What’s your problem, eh?” But none of them touched him. Morrie had the honor of making the first move. The punk eventually backed off. Afterwards, Morrie thanked me for not leaving him alone. As if he needed me to kick the punk’s ass.
Tikyo is a drug addict. Actually this didn't come as a surprise. We had an inkling of it back then. Tikyo was a cook who also made a living selling fresh fish to eateries and restaurants. He used to work in Italy, and his kids had Italian names. Giuseppe, Giancarlo. Like that. Maybe he imagined himself to be Don Vito Corleone. Whenever he made a few bucks, it usually meant party time. He’d buy a goat and slaughter it himself, and cook at least 3 dishes from that single goat. He’d buy cases of beer, which we augmented sometimes with gin when the supply ran low. About 6 years ago he went to our house in Paranaque and when the beer ran out, he asked to be excused and went out. Gary and I (Gary moved to Paranaque even before we did) assumed he went out to light a joint, but it turned out, he was into something else. One of his sons died of an illness the year before and he probably took it harder than we thought he did. My aunt says he looks like an emaciated skeleton now.
Junkies is dead. Junkies was the neighborhood drunk who can always be counted on to show up whenever two or three of us are gathered together in the name of beer. He was actually a lot older than we were, but he liked hanging out with us even if we made fun of him for being a drunk. He got his nickname because he bought and sold junk for a living, whatever living he could scrape out of doing that. Mostly, he lived off the kindness of neighbors. There really was enough food in the neighborhood and all he had to do was show up. “Ano, Junkies? Kumain ka na?” Have you eaten? You can also count on Junkies to run errands for you. Once, one of the guys played a nasty trick on him. We were gathered together, drinking San Miguel Beer, when Junkies showed up, right on schedule. There was singing and the usual horsing around, when this guy pees in a glass, added some ice, and handed it to Junkies, who dutifully drank the stuff. “What this? Tastes different,” he says. “That’s Beer na Beer.” (Beer na Beer is a different brand of beer.) I swear I didn't know what was going on until they told me the next day, and yes, sue me, I laughed my head off. Junkies is dead but his younger brother Baby Cake is still alive and has taken his place. His legacy continues.
Every Christmas time, when Gary and I sit down over a few—ok more than a few—beers, we always reminisce about the good old days in Caloocan. Christmas time was when Morrie would round up a few of us who can sing, and we’ll go caroling. We had a guitar and we’d sing O Holy Night and a couple of others. We were good. This was attested to by the fact that we made money, which we wisely spent later on bottles of gin, 7-up, calamansi, and ice, a drink we fondly called a Set, which we mixed in a teapot. We also had enough money to buy a few dishes from the local restaurant. Everyone was invited to the nightly mini-parties. There was singing and horsing around and the occasional fisticuffs between drunken revelers who always patched up their differences the next day. And woe to the thief, cat burglar, purse snatcher, or ne’er-do-well running from the law or the neighborhood patrol who happens to choose our dead-end street to duck into whenever the entire gang was there. (Morrie once brought down a burglar by hitting him with a chair, and even tried accompanying the neighborhood patrol to the police station with the guy, an outing that was cut short when one of the patrol guys pointed out that a knife was sticking out from a wound just below Morrie's ribs. They took him to the hospital instead, where he promptly passed out.)
I often wonder how many more years we have til our topics would turn to those of us who are dead, the way our uncs and their pals do whenever they get together to reminisce. (Junkies doesn’t count. It’s a wonder he lasted as long as he did.) “How’s Barry Boy?” Dead. “How’s Louie Boo?” Dead. “How’s Sexy?” Dead. “How’s Jego?” Dead.
Do you want to live forever?
Monday, January 02, 2006
Looking In
The month of January was named for the Roman god Janus--god of gates and doors, as well as the god of beginnings. He is a most peculiar god, having 2 faces: one looking forward and another looking back. This is supposed to depict the god looking at both the past and the future at the same time. It’s always wise to get one’s bearings by contemplating on things past before regarding things future, yes? Ang hindi lumingon sa pinanggalingan... Janus has everything pretty much covered.
Or does he? There is one direction where Janus isnt looking: Inward. Looking inward is a lost pursuit these days. We’ve all got work to do, bills to pay, dreams to chase... Who has time? And looking inward? That is probably the most unproductive thing a anybody can do!
“Know thyself,” Socrates said. An unexamined life is not worth living. But why would we need to? Things happen and we react. Our past shaped us, probably even more so than our genes did, and there is nothing we can do to change the past. Our self is just a sum total of all our past experiences and memories.
And besides, exactly how does one look inward? How does one ever truly know onself? Can we trust our own perceptions of who we truly are? On our own? Without our biases or our most-of-the-time skewed image of who we truly are? More often than not, if we even deign to try to be honest with ourselves about who we are, we’re wrong.
Eastern philosophy makes a big thing about knowing oneself as one truly is, without opinions, without biases, without sensory input of any kind. “He who knows others is wise; he who knows oneself is enlightened.” So says the Tao. But it takes years of training to achieve this so-called enlightenment. Supposedly, after sensory input and the tyranny of memory is set aside, all that the adept is left with is the self, the pure consciousness of one’s consciousness without any content. Right. I’ll take your word for it, Swami Banananda.
There is an easier way. A way available to every one of us. And that is knowing ourselves through the eyes of others. A meeting of our own perceptions of who we are melded with the perceptions of someone we trust. Someone we love. Think of your eyes: Your eyes see everything that is visible. Everything, that is, except your eyes. The quickest way to shatter our own illusions about who we really are is by interacting with others; sharing who we are with others. Easier said that done. We’re naturally protective of who we are. Or rather who we think we are. We tend to share with others who tend to reinforce our own image of ourselves no matter how fictitious this image is. Such is our nature. It takes an almost heroic step to give yourself over to somebody, to trust that somebody with ourselves. You might not like what you see reflected in that person’s eyes, but at least you’ll know. And knowing, in the immortal words of G.I. Joe, is half the battle. We’re not prisoners of our past. We’re not robots whose thoughts and actions are constrained by our programming. We’re humans. We’re free. We can change despite of the conditioning ingrained in us in our walk through life. If that person you chose to share with truly cares about you, who you really are doesn’t matter as much as who you can become. Knowing who you are now is but a springboard to better things.
We were built that way, I guess. To need others. The fullness of our humanity can only come to fruition as part of something bigger than ourselves.
(Schmaltz originally written for the ersatz company newsletter, January 2004.)
Or does he? There is one direction where Janus isnt looking: Inward. Looking inward is a lost pursuit these days. We’ve all got work to do, bills to pay, dreams to chase... Who has time? And looking inward? That is probably the most unproductive thing a anybody can do!
“Know thyself,” Socrates said. An unexamined life is not worth living. But why would we need to? Things happen and we react. Our past shaped us, probably even more so than our genes did, and there is nothing we can do to change the past. Our self is just a sum total of all our past experiences and memories.
And besides, exactly how does one look inward? How does one ever truly know onself? Can we trust our own perceptions of who we truly are? On our own? Without our biases or our most-of-the-time skewed image of who we truly are? More often than not, if we even deign to try to be honest with ourselves about who we are, we’re wrong.
Eastern philosophy makes a big thing about knowing oneself as one truly is, without opinions, without biases, without sensory input of any kind. “He who knows others is wise; he who knows oneself is enlightened.” So says the Tao. But it takes years of training to achieve this so-called enlightenment. Supposedly, after sensory input and the tyranny of memory is set aside, all that the adept is left with is the self, the pure consciousness of one’s consciousness without any content. Right. I’ll take your word for it, Swami Banananda.
There is an easier way. A way available to every one of us. And that is knowing ourselves through the eyes of others. A meeting of our own perceptions of who we are melded with the perceptions of someone we trust. Someone we love. Think of your eyes: Your eyes see everything that is visible. Everything, that is, except your eyes. The quickest way to shatter our own illusions about who we really are is by interacting with others; sharing who we are with others. Easier said that done. We’re naturally protective of who we are. Or rather who we think we are. We tend to share with others who tend to reinforce our own image of ourselves no matter how fictitious this image is. Such is our nature. It takes an almost heroic step to give yourself over to somebody, to trust that somebody with ourselves. You might not like what you see reflected in that person’s eyes, but at least you’ll know. And knowing, in the immortal words of G.I. Joe, is half the battle. We’re not prisoners of our past. We’re not robots whose thoughts and actions are constrained by our programming. We’re humans. We’re free. We can change despite of the conditioning ingrained in us in our walk through life. If that person you chose to share with truly cares about you, who you really are doesn’t matter as much as who you can become. Knowing who you are now is but a springboard to better things.
We were built that way, I guess. To need others. The fullness of our humanity can only come to fruition as part of something bigger than ourselves.
(Schmaltz originally written for the ersatz company newsletter, January 2004.)
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